“The supreme power is often revealed not in action, but in the absence of it.”
-Baltasar Gracián-
Chapter 133: The game was begun
The sun hadn’t fully risen, but Dominique was already in the operations room. The lights reflected off the wall of screens, numbers flowing in quiet harmony. No anomalies. No irregularities. No variances. Nothing to trigger a single pause in her pulse.
That was the first thing she noticed: certainty.
No delayed shipments. No misrouted deliveries. The city hummed with unnatural precision, as though someone had trained every hand, every eye, every sensor to obey an invisible conductor.
She didn’t trust it; she knew better.
Dominique stood with her hands clasped behind her back, watching the system like one might study a caged animal. Calm, contained, almost
